Tongues Of Angels
by Amand-r
Summary: Ooch, summary? Keywords, then: horror, slash, gods, Methos, Duncan, possession, and a jumping story timeline.
1. Pantheona

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the Highlander characters "du jour", which include Methos, Mac, Joe, Richie and the caravan of fun. I do not make any money. All those lovely characters belong to Davis/Panzer, and their little throng of people. Coo coo ca choo.  
  
This is slash. Not a first time. We are past that. Lord help me, as I sail the USS "we've been together for a few months". This is also....bizarre. Thanks to my beta, Alice, who says I chill you in all the right places. Get a blankie. __________________  
  
Tongues of Angels  
  
by Amand-r __________________  
  
PART ONE: PANTHEONA  
  
"I love you, dammit. God help me, I do." --Overheard in the men's bathroom at Joe's, a small blues bar in Seacouver  
  
092301.20:45  
  
Whenever Methos moves in his sleep, he has the annoying habit of smacking me in the face.  
  
I know, that isn't the best line to begin something like this, but I have to admit it is the utmost thing on my mind as well as being the source of how this whole thing came about. You know what that 'whole thing' is: me, Methos, the wild sex, the crazed insane moments of 'want-take-have' that we seem to be perforating our relationship with, followed last but not least by my own dying need to tell him I love him.  
  
Hard to believe a good hand smacking can make me want to fuck someone senseless.  
  
Perhaps that was a bad external locus of blame.  
  
Perhaps I should just begin at the beginning...  
  
"I think it's high time that you and I left the bed for supplies," Methos moaned as he stretched and tumbled out of bed. I stuck my head under the pillow. Methos is not a morning person, but he has this annoying habit of being awake as soon as he opens his eyes. He can start a conversation just as he sits up. He can go to sleep having a conversation and wake up with a perfect continuation of the last thing he said the night before dripping from his lips as if sleep had pressed some sort of pause button.  
  
I hate him for this reason.  
  
Okay, hate is a little too strong. But is it bad when the first thing I think is "I love you, but *Goddamn* shut up"?  
  
It is not as if I am not a morning person, I just lack this mystical skill to be ready to do anything before my feet touch the floor. Unless I am woken by something like an explosion, I like to drift awake and stretch a little.  
  
Methos, apparently, was born with rubber joints and muscles, so of course stretching is pointless. For those of us built with oh say, bones and other humanistic anatomical parts, trying to keep up with the living pretzel is a little difficult.  
  
I don't mind the pretzel part . Not. At. All.  
  
If I was being fair, and I sincerely try to be, I could say that I understand his "awakeness". I mean, five thousand years tends to teach one SOMETHING, and I can imagine that this is something he's just decided is more of a good than bad habit.  
  
I wonder if I might ever use this skill.  
  
Then again, he is awake, but not necessarily in a good mood, and moreover, he doesn't want to *do* anything. Well, not much of anything. Lounge, read the paper, whip me with wet towels, or the occas--  
  
092501.22:56  
  
It has nothing to do with a Quickening. It has nothing to do with drunkenness or desperation. There was no drugged food. I would say that it has to do with time. Who was that who said that all things have a precise second in which they are captured complete, self-contained, as prism-like and perfect as a dew drop in suspension?  
  
That would be Methos who said that.  
  
And that is what it has to do with.  
  
092901.11:43  
  
There have been a few times where we have merely stared at each other, and I think to myself 'my God this is a man. A man.' Then Methos smiles and flicks beer at me, or I have to...what is burning?  
  
100401. 02:03  
  
Methos has taken to disappearing for long stretches of time. I keep telling myself that this means nothing; after five thousand years, he probably simply forgets others. I mean, maybe he *needs* this time to screw his head on so he doesn't lose it. Funny, everything in this relationship goes back to the fact that I cannot fathom his head. I cannot understand. Why does he laugh when denture commercials come on the tele? Why does he throw things at me when I mention pease, or oatmeal?  
  
Back to the disappearing, yes.  
  
So, I called him on it. I mean, I was actually a little pissed. I don't know where he goes, for all I know he could be meeting some two-dollar whore named Talulah.  
  
I don't think so. I say these things to hurt myself.  
  
In any case:  
  
"So, who is she?" I asked him casually in the shower, as if we weren't washing and groping each other like curious children. Or those monkeys that check one another...no, maybe that's not where I want to go. That would be a Methosian observation, and this is not his log.  
  
"Who?" he murmured sleepily. I watched him lather his hands and begin to massage the tense muscles of his neck, rolling his head into the hot shower spray.  
  
"The woman you're seeing," I grumbled. I knew the moment I said it that it was like a dark deep wound opening. This had been a mistake. But, true to form, I barreled on, because in the end, you have to say it all at once. If you don't, you end up saving it for your next quarrel. And I had no intentions of any more quarrels. Then again, does anyone? I digress...  
  
"Or a man," I added, turning him forcefully to wash his back as I worked. He let me mumble, listening as if I was bitching about the weather, or that shitty sword oil I bought (which, incidentally, he told me was no good. Sometimes I have to do things to spite him.).  
  
He grunted when I pressed a little too hard with his ugly little scrubber, some hideous little ball of netting in a fuchsia that is way too bright for me to be staring at it this early in the morning.  
  
"Uhm," he said slowly. "I think that part of my back is clean, you know."  
  
I dropped the netting on the floor of the stall, and ignored him for the rest of the shower. I don't know why I did that. I think it just cuts me that I know something is going on, and he is being so casual about it.  
  
"There is no woman," he whispered in my ear through a towel when we step out of the shower. "Or man." When I simply stiffened and concentrated on untangling my hair with a comb, he sighed. "I don't expect you to understand."  
  
I hate being told that. I know, Methos is thousands of years older then I am, and that carried with it the authority to say things like 'you can't understand what it was like' or 'you have no idea yet...'  
  
This does not mean that I can accept it gracefully.  
  
"Then what is it?" I asked. "Is it me?"  
  
Methos sighed again, leaning against the shower stall, still dripping wet. He crossed his arms about his chest and turned away, back into the small stall. "No," he muttered, voice so sotto voce only the amplifying effects of the small space let me hear it. "It's not you. It's me."  
  
100701. 23:49  
  
Is it wrong to worry? Is it bad to see something in his face and wonder why it's there?  
  
100801. 22:53  
  
I found Methos on the roof today. It's kind of funny, because he hates the cold, but whenever it rains, I can find him out in it. Only this time there was no Walkman or raincoat. Hell, there wasn't even a sweater. Just Methos, out there in the fall cold, soaked to the bone, staring entranced at the sky.  
  
I am not the one to be the bearer of bad news. In this case, I think he might very well be losing it.  
  
What do you do when the person you're in love with is going insane? What can I say? What can I do?  
  
I had come home from a few errands I was running, and there he was, on the roof, in a t-shirt and jeans, staring into the horizon like there was something there that he desperately needed to see. What was it? I had decided that even though I usually left him to his own devices, this time was going a little too far.  
  
"Methos?" I called. No response. I wondered for a second if he was asleep standing up. Stranger things had happened to Methos, and I wasn't going to hedge any bets that it hadn't actually happened to him at least once before. This is the world's oldest Immortal, no matter how childish, no matter how cynical and in-expert.  
  
He was curled in himself, if that is even possible. His arms wrapped around his chest so tightly they pressed in like some sort of python. I wasn't even sure if I could touch him. Sometimes certain people emit this wave of "noli tangere" that you just have to respect. If I had touched him at that moment, I am not sure what might have happened. But I couldn't leave him there. So I simply sat down on the ventilation shaft and stared at him.  
  
He must have known I was there. He had to have known. Then I realized that I was simply staring at his ass outlined in his sopping wet jeans. It's funny how any situation can turn to sex.  
  
I tried my best not to give into this kind of thing. Methos was...in pain? Maybe? Confused? Am I dating an immortal with the equivalent of Alzheimer's?  
  
I knew that I had to say something. I had to say the right thing. If I said the right thing, then we could have both gone downstairs and eaten dinner, and watched Jeopardy. And he would have kicked my ass, like normal.  
  
"I have gazpacho."  
  
"I bought that cheese bread you like."  
  
"It's celebrity Jeopardy. I'm going to cream you."  
  
Methos uncoiled his arms, and for a second I thought that the moment of frightening silence was over. And it was, but not the way I wanted it to be.  
  
"PANTHEONA!!!" Methos screamed shrilly into the sky, waving his hands above him. I watched the display. What the hell was Methos thinking? That is always a dangerous question, I think. Getting inside that head is like saying "Oh, wow, I can learn auto mechanics in two weeks! No problem!"  
  
(If you are wondering, I got the nifty little sarcastic idea there from Richie. But this isn't about him, so there really is nothing further to say.)  
  
"Methos," I muttered. "Methos, what's going on?"  
  
He turned to me, as if he had just noticed I was there, and for a second, I could see that he had wanted to tell me. Instead, he stiffened, lowered his arms and shook his head.  
  
"Of all that I have seen," he sighed, eyes rolling to the back of his head. "Of all that I have seen, Pantheona is coming back." He seemed then to fold downwards, as if he could sink through the floor.  
  
I had no reply to that. What could I have said? What could anyone say? What was this, another of Methos's big bad buddies coming from the past? And if it isn't a woman, or a man, then what was it?  
  
My heart fluttered for a second. All of our lives had flooded into the mystic too easily in the past few years for me to be able to handle another spectral visitation.  
  
Methos sighed, gargantuan, fluttered those long lashes and smiled a crooked grin. I could forgive the world for that grin. It's funny how helplessness will usher in relief when it isn't warranted, isn't it?  
  
"Did you say, gazpacho?"  
  
Who is Pantheona? Methos won't say. He turns white when I mention it. Or her. Or whomever.  
  
************************************  
  
NINE YEARS LATER, LONDON:  
  
"If you keep reading in this light, you're gonna go blind," the older watcher muttered, using his cane to tap the edge of the Chronicle. Its holder, a young girl with wide brown eyes, glanced up sharply.  
  
"Huh? Oh. Yeah." She slammed shut the leather bound book and set it back down in the little office cubicle that had been assigned to her by the research division. "I'm sorry Mr. Dawson, I was just curious about that Chronicle--"  
  
"It's not a Chronicle," Dawson cut in, as he abruptly turned and sauntered down the deserted Academy hall. "It's a personal journal you took from my desk without asking." The girl followed in his heels. These young kids, they never did learn. That is, they never did learn in time.  
  
"But I thought--"  
  
Dawson interrupted her as they continued. She dogged his steps a little, as if she couldn't keep up with him. That was charming. He was only going two miles per hour, he was sure, and she was built like a young gazelle. These kids. These goofy polite kids.  
  
"It's not a Chronicle, Natasha." He sighed. "It's a momento."  
  
Tasha looked sideways at him. He could see one comma of hair come down over her eyes. "It was Duncan MacLeod's, wasn't it?"  
  
Dawson smiled and stopped; he turned to Natasha, one of his new aides. She was so young. She was so innocent. Her face, a little rounded thing, spoke only a double decade.  
  
"Come on, I'll buy you a drink."  
  
She seemed to agree, as if his statement had declared something unspoken, waves of chaotic dissonance in the darkness of the Academy halls.  
  
"Mr. Dawson, who is Pantheona?"  
  
The question was a stab. She really didn't mean it. It burned him anyway. Joe stopped in mid walk and turned to her. "Nothing. Nothing and no one."  
  
He left her standing in the hallway, wondering what the hell had just happened, rough staccato of his cane banishing the word into the depths of un-saying:  
  
Pantheona. Pantheona.  
  
****************  
  
MONTANA, THREE MONTHS LATER:  
  
The snow was shading the roof of the house in such a manner that Sher Mackenzie wasn't sure if it would fall off the moment she opened the door. The sun was nowhere to be seen, just that doomy grey sky that might mean snow, might mean cold, might mean all number of things except whether it was supposed to be light or dark. She wondered again why she stayed in the cold when she was supposed to be a desert girl.  
  
Sher shrugged on her big down coat and cinched the waist. She observed herself in the mirror by the door, pulled on the hood, and did her best 'nuclear fallout suit' impression. The she grabbed a pair of gloves and opened the front door cautiously.  
  
No snow fell on her head, though lazy flakes traced spirals down from the overhanging sky, adding insult to injury in what was supposed to be a rather mild winter. She huffed hard into her scarf, regretting it the moment she did so as the moisture from it hardened cold inside the otherwise dry wool, and she rolled her eyes. She had left Texas, for this?  
  
//The cold keeps it immobile, you know that,// she reminded herself. She picked up a shovel from the side of the porch and made her way to the barn, listening to the dull crunch of snow under her feet. //The cold keeps her immobile.//  
  
The horses she had once owned were gone. Ten years ago she had settled into Seacouver, content on leaving everything complicated behind: immortals, Watchers, the entire shebang. She had opened her own little stable and run horses, trail rides. Girl Scout troops came to her for lessons, for Christ's sakes.  
  
But the horses were gone in the fire of 2004. Methos had taken another as his lover a few years before that, and Sher had watched him slide into that life with the want of someone who knows better than to be jealous, but was powerless to stop it.  
  
//And you once licked a cold pole in the middle of winter knowing full well what would happen to you,// she told herself. //Now *that* is a great analogy.//  
  
With the horses gone, and nothing else to stop her, Sher had headed for Rio like one possessed. She tossed Methos in the trash. She severed her contacts with this world, and set off into the forests of South America to 'make like Tarzan' for as long as possible. Who would have known that she would have returned so soon, not just to the north, but to a place where they air dropped groceries?  
  
Sher glimpsed the barn structure ahead over the next rise. With luck, she wasn't snowed out. She needed to feed the critter. //Critter,// she mused bitterly. //Yeah, you call him that.//  
  
What she referred to as 'the barn' only resembled one in structure. It had been a bitch getting a crew to come out and plate an already existing wooden structure with sheet metal walls on the inside, but it had been well worth it. Those walls had saved her life more than once, if not her head. Sher didn't have a blade, sword, knife or sharp edge within the surrounding twenty miles. She wasn't quite sure if Pantheona could rip her head off with her hands, but Sher was in no mood to ever test that theory.  
  
She stood at the entrance to the red painted wooden barn --such a normal construction that even the Amish would have trouble guessing its other purpose-- and punched in the security code on the ice-encrusted panel. The eight-digit code was the easiest thing she'd ever have to remember these days: 12211592. //Cute, Sher, so very adorable.//  
  
The doors opened, not out, but to the sides, sliding into themselves like antiquated grocery store doors, and the evening report came on over the speakers that lined the walls as she headed into the building. She didn't remove her coat; the temperature was still well below comfort. The cold did show the thing down.  
  
"Date, zero, one, eleven, two thousand eleven. Containment, holding. Subject, non-mobile. Restraints, broken, two-thirty am feeding rejected. Shall I try again?" the computer asked so politely it sounded like it had asked her if she would like coffee. Sher rubbed her face with a mitten and shook her head. The computer waited for a response.  
  
"No Tessa, don't try again. If he wants it, he'll scream or something. Sound logs, screen for abnormal frequencies, please," she added, flopping down in the chair and allowing the outer doors to close on her. The facility lights came on shrouding Sher in pale fluorescence.  
  
"Compliance." The computer database worked while her tucked herself into her chair with a comforter. The screen blinked in front of her. An old Liz Phair CD spun in the player, ready to play. She stopped it, and turned up the volume on the overhead monitor speakers. "Ready. Three minutes of abnormal sound."  
  
"Play."  
  
The computer clicked and whirred. Sher knew the cold wasn't that good for it; there was nothing she could do. She could have ordered cold withstanding parts, but the military tended to get suspicious about people who ordered supercomputer parts built to withstand Antarctic cold, but lived in Montana. Sher made do with temperature regulated parts, and she would have to fix it herself if it broke, but the airlift parts weren't due in till next week.  
  
"First session, one sixteen am--"  
  
The first few seconds of the recording were silence, and Sher closed her eyes so that she wouldn't see the voice readouts spiking on the far monitor.  
  
'.....sohtem......' it began, a low sibilant whisper, almost like the hiss of white static. She massaged her temples, and spoke out loud.  
  
"Tessa, please skip all references to 'sohtem', thank you."  
  
The computer paused the recording and reworked the sound files. Sher almost expected it to tell her there were no other sounds.  
  
"Nineteen seconds of abnormal sound.," chimed overhead. Sher glanced up and cocked her head. She pushed away the comforter and stood.  
  
"Playback," Sher told it, not even bothering to look up at the voice monitor.  
  
"First session, one sixteen am--"  
  
'.......arret bus mus oge...oinev....suilif suem.......'  
  
"Second session, six thirty seven am--"  
  
'Omalc....oma et --'  
  
"Sound files finished."  
  
Sher took off her coat and stretched against the wall. "Tessa, return the references to 'sohtem' imbedded in existing files."  
  
"Compliance."  
  
'Sohtem, arret bus mus oge, sohtem, oinev, suilif suem.....Omalc, oma et sohtem....'  
  
The voice was so foreign Sher wouldn't have guessed it for human. This was not abnormal. She was used to that. But the sounds were new. Anything other than 'sohtem' was new. She twisted the words in her head.  
  
"Tessa, reverse recording."  
  
Sher didn't wait for the recording to playback. She grabbed the Taser from the wall and strapped it to her waist, and opened the far doors that led down the corridor into the complex. Tessa's speakers extended down into the halls and to the sub basement. She descended the halls waiting for the recording. The lights kicked on when they sensed her movement.  
  
The bay doors opened with another keypad password--sohtem. She thought the irony amusing.  
  
//The one you wants keeps you trapped here,// she told the creature on the other side of the doors.  
  
Sher had found that Plexiglas wasn't anywhere strong enough to keep Pantheona in; the beast had wrecked it in a matter of hours. Sher had resorted to standard metal bar grids. There was no electricity to keep her warm, and that was just fine with Sher. The thing was Immortal; it could stand being a Popsicle.  
  
The five-foot window was enough to let her and Tessa tend to the creature. Its bars were reinforced titanium rods imbedded in the bedrock thirty feet below them. They were anchored in a cross webbing of structural support that made Notre Dame look like it was going to crumble any second.  
  
Pantheona's cell was hay and cement. Sher allowed the creature blankets, though precious few. She was unclean anyway.  
  
Sher allowed the lights to shine into the cell, musing as she did so that it had not been too many years ago when she had been in Pantheona's place, though for different reasons. The Elders of the Watchers had not been this cruel when they had locked her in a cell for her Quickening. At least she had had heat and a bed.  
  
There was nothing in front of her directly. The creature must have been hidden in a corner. Sher stood a good five feet from the cell bars. She would not be fooled by the silence.  
  
The creature inside this cage had been someone she had loved dearly. She had been deceived by that face once, and it had cost her a finger. Never again.  
  
"Sound file playback--"  
  
'Methos, te amo, clamo.....meus filius, venio, Methos....ego sum sub terra, Methos."  
  
Sher shrugged as the sound file finished. "Pantheona," she called. "Come on, you little bitch....how are we this morning, hungry? Yes?" she finished in a high little voice like she would talk to a baby, or one of her horses. This things had ripped the leg off her last horse. Nothing alive lived with Sher anymore, not even fish. She missed having pets.  
  
A head appeared, hidden in hair, trembling; hands with too long fingernails slid into the crevices between the bars and grasped the cold metal.  
  
"Cold," whined a small voice, childlike in its pain.  
  
"Suck it up," Sher told the barely visible face.  
  
"Cold, sohtem," it told her again.  
  
Sher smiled, and tossed a blanket at it. A man-sized hand that belied the voice grasped the flannel and pulled it in through the thin holes in the bars. Sher speared a quartered apple on a long pike and slid the end of the pole into a vice in the wall. She pulled a lever and the entire section of the wall slid forward, taking the pike closer to the bars. Fingers reached out and delicately removed the apple, one section at a time.  
  
"Thank you," the voice said.  
  
"Save it," Sher spat. The head came into view fully, as Sher translated the phrases in her head. "Tessa," she called louder. "Translate from Latin."  
  
"Compliance--"  
  
'Methos, I love you, I cry...'  
  
Sher stared at that face wondering what the hell had happened to them all.  
  
'My son, I come, Methos...'  
  
Duncan smiled sickly sweet and rammed an apple wedge into his mouth.  
  
'I am under the earth, Methos.'  
  
end part one. 


	2. Sohtem

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the Highlander characters "du jour", which include Methos, Duncan, Joe, Richie and the caravan of fun. I do not make any money. All those lovely characters belong to Davis/Panzer, and their little throng of people. Coo coo ca choo.  
  
This is part of Tongues of Angels, a semi-slash serial I have decided to put out. The events described by Sher Mackenzie about her Watcher days can be found in the novella Masters at Deception, but are not necessary tools of understanding here.  
  
Thank you to Alice, a wonderful beta....and to Dana, who wants to see all the feedback on this one. If I get any. No one reads me anymore...::sob sob:: Thanks to Tianyu, the inept beta, who argued for fifteen minutes about heat generators.  
  
WARNINGS: This serial contains some slash references, extreme macabre violence, and rather unreasonable language. If you don't like swear words and the famous four letter "c" word, please be warned.  
  
__________________  
  
Tongues of Angels  
  
by Amand-r __________________  
  
You come out at night. that's when the energy comes And the dark side's light, and the vampires roam You strut your rasta wear and your suicide poem And a cross from a faith that died before Jesus came You're building a mystery. --Sarah McLachlan, "Building A Mystery"  
  
PART TWO: SOHTEM  
  
103001.22:34  
  
Methos is gone. I should have expected it. I should have predicted it.  
  
Some things are too good to waste, and all of those are too good to last. I know this better than anyone.  
  
I returned home to find all of his stuff just....gone. Like he'd planned it. And the stupid thing is, I didn't even see this one coming.  
  
I called Joe, and he's just as shocked as I am. I have a few ideas where he might be. I could go after him. I could find him. I bet he went to Santorini. It's cold here, and the islands are warm. I bet he did....  
  
********  
  
LONDON, 2012:  
  
Natasha's mother had always wanted to name her daughter something else. She had known from the moment that the midwife had smacked the child's bottom and her little Tasha had let loose a wail that was fit to rouse her ancestors, that Natasha was not the name for this child. This child, she saw, from the cooing face in the nursery, or the bubbling smile she donned three days after she was born, had never known sorrow. This child was balanced. And more importantly, this child would do great, great things. This child would unearth the sun.  
  
She died when Natasha was six.  
  
She never got to find out how wrong she was.  
  
And so, Natasha sat in her little cubicle in the middle of Watcher Central, London Division, hammering away at the mystery journal with the tenacity and intent of the builders of the tower of Babel. She referenced Adam Pierson. She looked up every Methos file available, then everything on MacLeod from 1973 onward. She charted their timelines and sightings on a graph to show intersections in location. She set three research drones to work gathering any information the earth had to hold on the word Pantheona. She read every dictionary to decipher it; she took classes in ancient Greek to translate the older Chronicles. She visited professors in Borneo and Athens to grill them about the ancient word.  
  
No one had ever heard of it. It wasn't a name, it wasn't a mystery religion, it wasn't a god or goddess. It wasn't even an old eclectic wine vintage from the Peloponnese, as the office betting pool had decided. In fact, the office pool had now decided that Pantheona was some personal thing, much like Kane's Rosebud.  
  
And so, on this rainy, dreary, and overall depressing Tuesday a half hour before tea, Natasha was on her way out the door to the local pub to meet her fiancée when she was stopped by a frantic researcher who couldn't seem to put one word in front of the next. His confusion extended to his feet, as he staggered with her back to the study, where several other watchers had already gathered around the tome in the dim light of the preservation room.  
  
Tasha felt the moisture seep into her skin, and wondered why they had to keep the room so cold. Surely, this kind of environment wasn't good for anyone's health...  
  
"We found Pantheona," he said to her softly, his voice belying the excitement of his announcement, or perhaps he felt the need to lower his voice in the presence of so many books.  
  
The current occupants of the room felt no need to silence themselves; two men and three women screamed at each other over the wide expanse of the tables. Natasha isolated voices and attempted to turn down the volume in her head.  
  
"It can't possibly be from the same Chronicle; there are no missing pages!" Jean, one of the head antiquities researchers argued, flipping notebooks open and shut. He traced the pages of a dusty text with light fingers, bending down so close his breath might curdle the fragile pages. "I catalogued the continuity of the pages myself."  
  
Pricilla Silsbee, the head of the internship division and aspiring head mistress of the London Academy, rubbed the bridge of her nose with her thumb and forefinger. "Well that explains a lot then."  
  
Jean colored a brilliant shade of red, and it wasn't all from his quiet drinking sessions in the back of the library. He slammed the book shut. "Do you have something to imply, bitch, or are you just assuming that everyone is as incompetent as you are?"  
  
"I'm not the one who's screaming about--"  
  
Natasha waved her hands in the air and brought them slamming down onto the table. "Ladies! Gentlemen!" Five pairs of middle-aged eyes rolled in their sockets to take her in, all twenty-three years of her. Natasha felt as if those eyes had stripped her age away, and scrambled for an assertive edge. She rammed one hand into her pocket to keep it from shaking. Why had she been so driven to research this? And who in their right mind had approved it?  
  
Instead, she steeled her mind and gritted her teeth. "What do you have?"  
  
Jean volunteered the information slowly, as if the words had been lassoed and yanked out of him struggling. "We found Pantheona."  
  
"Tell me," Natasha ordered. It wasn't very effective, but it did start the ball rolling. Everyone in this room could have been her superior. It wasn't her fault her father was the head of the European branch. Okay, maybe it was.  
  
"Pantheona," began Gerald Forman, a balding man with a sallow face from too much time inside. "Is not the original name. We knew that the Pantheon was the set of deities in the Greco Roman world. This is not what Pantheona refers to."  
  
He flipped the pages in the text he was examining, and slid the book down the long table to rest in front of Natasha. "Pantheona is the Roman bastardization of Pythiona, it seems, from this medieval text. It's an old Methosian Chronicle."  
  
Natasha leaned in closer to the yellowed pages. "How do you know?"  
  
Gerald shrugged. "The Latin mentions her in passing. 'I hope to God that Panthyona is still gone. There were gusts of her on the wind this spring, and I felt myself slipping towards her again. Gusts of her, of Panthyona.' And then there is this--"  
  
Gerald lifted up the flap of the book and withdrew an old woodcutters print block. Natasha took it in her hands and held it to the light.  
  
It had never been used. But the markings on it were undeniable scrolled words that read 'Panthyona'. She felt her hands tremble, and she almost lost the grip she had on the wood.  
  
"But what does it mean?" she whispered. No one seemed to want to answer her. Natasha squinted in the dim room.  
  
Panthyona was embraced on both sides by lighting. She was just a woman, twining around a tree. Her fingers clutched at the low branches, almost as if she would uproot it with her bare hands. She wore a simple tunic stola combination, her hair roiling in masses of curls. Whoever had done this carving had taken a lot of pains to make sure that her hair was immaculately done. A large snake enveloped her, around her waist, tail falling down the leg and stretching up with its head into the leaves of the trees themselves.  
  
Natasha let her finger fall into the grooves on either side of the snake and trace them up into the foliage.  
  
"They say that Hera had a tree of forbidden knowledge, and that around this tree curled the serpent Ladon," Jean whispered, rubbing his eyes.  
  
"Like that Biblical tree of good and evil," finished Gerald. "Panthyona, could be translated into 'pythiona', or snake."  
  
Pantheona, god. Pythiona, snake. Which one was it? And who would name a child after such creatures?  
  
"What else?" Natasha asked quietly. Thoughts were half formed in her head, like the soft-shell of a premature egg, not really strong enough to hold anything in.  
  
"Nothing. Fragile guesses. The new spelling allows us more freedom in searching, but other than that reference, there is nothing." Pricilla gathered the Chronicle in her hands, and took the woodcutting away from Natasha. She gave it up grudgingly.  
  
"Well, keep working then," Natasha murmured. "Go see if they can date this in the lab." Pricilla glowered at her with the look of one who wished that random violence could be condoned by society. "I'll be back when I find out something. Jean, go get the other volumes from the basement."  
  
Jean turned to leave, and she called after him. "And get Joe Dawson's number."  
  
Jean froze and turned to her. "Dawson? You're sure?" When Natasha only began to buckle her coat, he continued, waving his hands to express his agitation. "Dawson is an invalid, and a drunk. I bet he's senile, for God's sake, what is he, seventy?"  
  
"Hardly," Natasha spat back. "He's the one who was friends with Methos. He's the one who had the journal." She stuffed her hands into her pockets and clenched them into fists. "I'll call Dawson; until then, keep digging."  
  
Before she could damage her image as a superior any more, she turned and walked as quickly as she could out of the room down the hall and all the way to the pub, as if distance made her older, taller, prouder. She near- trotted all the way to the bar, to the arms of her non-Watcher boyfriend, fiancée. Peter never asked her about work. Peter had never even heard of Pantheona. And that was sounding blissful right about now.  
  
********  
  
Gerald stared at Jean over the research table. The other Watcher was faced away from him, and all he could see were the graying curls at the nape of the man's neck. He watched Jean look around him, then unscrew the cap from a small metal flask and take a deep long pull.  
  
It was no secret that Jean was drinking on the job. Gerald had known for years. He had even covered for Jean's incompetence three or four times. Despite all this, Jean was still hailed as one of the most brilliant researchers in the Watchers today. In fact, Gerald had written his final observational thesis when Jean had passed out from too many scotches at the bar. This paper had won him the coveted antiquities research grant. It was a top-level job with a huge salary, and no work.  
  
It should have been Gerald's job.  
  
Gerald felt his face grow hot as he watched Jean take another pull from the flask, then start to pick his nose. It should have been Gerald's job. It had been Gerald who had found this new Chronicle.  
  
He didn't even know he'd been clutching the Chronicle until the leather cover crinkled in his hands. He glanced down at it dumbly, then opened it and stared at the woodcutting.  
  
Pantheona smiled at him. She was so pretty. He watched the lightning captivate her and the serpent roll around her waist, like Ladon around Hera's forbidden tree.  
  
Jean made a noise deep in his throat. Then he spat phlegm into the wastepaper basket at his feet. Pricilla Silsbee's heels echoed on the other side of the room.  
  
Gerald hated Pricilla with a passion. She was a gorgeous cunt, yes, but she would never give him the time of day, would she? What about the other little bitch in here, the active watcher, she was too young for him, and he was no sugar daddy. Isn't that what she had told him when he had asked her out?  
  
Gerald watched Jean's head nod into sleep.  
  
He was still watching the back of that head when he brought the axe cleanly down into Jean's skull.  
  
********  
  
THREE DAYS LATER, MONTANA:  
  
Sher wiped her forehead and dug into the boxes that had been dropped from the air express. The crate had landed sometime that morning while she had been in with Pantheona, and it had been like Christmas when she had encountered it on the way back to the house. Christmas, minus the wrapping and the big floppy red bow. Her excitement was not diminished by the plain brown crate's appearance.  
  
Sher had opened the large crate with a crowbar and loaded all the sealed packages on a sled to drag back to the house. A good horse would have come in hand right about then. Sher had cast rueful eyes back at the red barn, and remembered her last horse, her baby....perhaps not.  
  
It took her three loads to get everything back into the house. Once they were in, she had dismantled the crate and planned to use it for house repairs. She stowed the crowbar back into its locked strongbox and hung up her coat. The firewood was dangerously low. Sher could freeze to death, and it wasn't permanent, but she had already done that a few times this year. Hopefully they had sent the axe.  
  
Sher picked through the foodstuffs. Spam...dried beans and other preservable foods....more Spam. Ugh, she hated Spam. Oooh, oranges, bless Joe. There was a box of Godiva chocolates and a small tin of cocoa. And a nice pound of bacon that made Sher's arteries harden even as she stared at it. Nestled in the middle of it all were a bundle of letters, and her mail from her house in Paris.  
  
They did send her an axe, as requested, a small two handed one. Fire fucking engine red. //Whee.//  
  
Fifteen boxes of hollow tip nine-millimeter rounds and four boxes of rifle cartridges. Sher stuffed them in a drawer and locked it.  
  
He'd sent her movies too: An old VHS copy of "An Affair to Remember", and "Beverly Hills Cop." Joe was nothing if not a sick fuck. Sher tossed them in with the others he had sent her, like "The Last Unicorn" and "The Full Monty".  
  
Finally, at the bottom of one of the boxes, a small envelope addressed to her, but not ever mailed. Sher turned it over in her hands. No return address. But the writing was unmistakably notorious. She ripped it open with still numb fingers, absently throwing a log on the fire and settling down on the bearskin rug that Methos had sent her the first time he had learned what she had been up to.  
  
Methos had the handwriting of a serial killer. She smiled.  
  
"Scheherazade--  
  
"I would say that I hope this finds you well, but perhaps you would laugh. I know that Duncan is safe in your hands, and I know that you will be of the most cautious nature in his presence.  
  
"Understand that what happened was in no way, shape or form my fault. Understand that I couldn't see it coming. Excuses, excuses, I suppose. I have not deserted you, but--"  
  
Sher tossed the letter in the fire. She didn't need this crap from him. "Oh sohtem," she murmured under her breath. These days he was 'sohtem'; she couldn't help herself.  
  
She had to do something about the lack of firewood, and sometime in the next day or so, or she was going to freeze to death. That wouldn't be fun. Sher packed away the perishables and shrugged on her coat. She snagged the axe from the dining room table and finished suiting up.  
  
The weather was an even freezing outside. Better than last winter, but then, last winter, they had said in the news, had been one of the worst. Sher only knew this because Joe had sent her a newspaper clipping. How sad that she was so isolated.  
  
//The cold keeps him immobile,// she reminded herself. //Remember, the cold is important.//  
  
Sher hadn't planned on such a terrible winter. But the snow had come in September this year, and she had started to run really low in December. Sher hadn't had ductwork installed in the house because of the pointless waste of a heat generator. She decided it would be better to spend energy on security and electricity. And while it did mean that heated showers were an impossibility, she would rather sacrifice a shower spray if it meant that the doors would hold, and she would not be torn limb from limb in the middle of the winter. Generators only held so much power, and no one was coming out here to change them until March.  
  
The cords she had had delivered in the summer weren't going to be enough, and so Sher had decided it would be prudent to have an axe handy. Despite her loathing to have any sort of edge near Pantheona, she was going to have to do something. March was a long way away, and she would probably need heat well into April.  
  
Pantheona was doing relatively well. In the summer, Sher might have him transferred to something less...restrictive. They were having longer conversations, and sometimes even, it seemed as if Duncan was peeking out from under the heavy cowl of the creature. Then again....  
  
Sher selected a tree, a small one, but she only had a small axe. It was noon. She wouldn't get much done anyway. It was not good to be out after dark. Sher hated the dark with a passion, a trait that had started recently. There were wolves out here, and her guns weren't good against something that moved that fast. She heard their baying in the night.  
  
They had told her not to believe anything the creature said. They had told her that Pantheona would try anything to get out. Sher believed them. But sometimes when she stared at those velvet brown eyes, she saw MacLeod, and her first instinct was to utter the clearances out.  
  
And to see him free and hale, she might very well risk being torn apart.  
  
"There was a frog once," Sher muttered in the woods, as she swung the axe into the side of the tree. "He was just sitting on the side of the pond, minding his own business, doing froggy stuff." She pulled the axe out of the tree and swung again. "And along came this scorpion, and he went up to the frog and said 'Hey, could you let me hop on your back and catch a ride across the pond?'"  
  
Sher smiled and dug the axe deeper. "The frog said 'If I let you ride on me, then you'll sting me with your tail, and I'll die.'" She sighed. "But the scorpion said, 'No, if I were to sting you, you would die and I would drown. That wouldn't make any sense.'  
  
"The frog thought this logical, and decided to do it. The scorpion hopped on his back and he started swimming off into the water." Sher giggled. "But about halfway across, the frog felt this sting in his back, and started to feel numb. ' You stung me! You said you wouldn't!' And the scorpion said--"  
  
"'You knew what I was when you let me on your back,'" finished another voice. Sher swung around and threw the axe, drawing her .38 out of her coat pocket as she turned.  
  
The axe went wide and buried itself in a tree, and Cassandra turned to stare at it for a second. Sher breathed out a sigh of relief, and lowered the weapon, replacing the safety and shoving it in her pocket. Cassandra turned back to look at her. Her face was tanned against the snow, framed by the fur-lined collar and hood of a long insulated parka.  
  
"You are tense," she told the other woman. Sher rolled her eyes and smiled. Cassandra shrugged her pack on her shoulders and held out her open arms. Sher ignored these in favor of chasing the axe. She yanked it out of the tree and slammed it back into the tree she was working on. With any luck, she might finish some of this by nightfall.  
  
"You didn't feel me coming," Cassandra murmured softly. Her voice echoed, everything else deadened by the snowfall. She sat on another fallen log and lowered her pack to the ground.  
  
Sher snorted softly. "You know why," she whispered, breathing labored. Maybe if she looked really busy, this talk could be delayed.  
  
"Yes," the other Immortal replied. "Pantheona is dulling your senses." When Sher chose not to reply, she sighed. "You are brave to take on this...mission."  
  
Sher stopped and dropped the axe. She panted, watching Cassandra's face school itself into one of elderly patronization. "You know what?" she asked the woman. "You said to let him rot. Let them both rot."  
  
Cassandra shook he head. "I said to let Methos rot. I did not mean that about Duncan. Look what he did to Duncan--"  
  
"You can't know that," Sher parried. "You don't know, and neither do I." She picked up the axe again and slammed it into the tree trunk. She hoped Cassandra thought about her own neck while watching that swift motion. "Are you staying?"  
  
"Briefly, yes."  
  
She stopped to watch as Cassandra picked up her pack and waited. "If you want to keep warm tonight, you'll leave me alone then. Get rid of the sword. I don't care where you put it, but get rid of any blades." She fished the gun out of her pocket and handed it to the other woman. "Here, use this." Cassandra made a face at the gun. "Lose the sword. If he makes it out, the sword is the last thing you'll want. He'll get too close. The gun is better."  
  
"I don't--" Cassandra began.  
  
"Hey, stick that sword up your ass and tie it in a bow. You're a guest in my house, and if he gets out, I won't even have to think about punishing you, because we'll both be dead, understand?" Sher punctuated her point by slamming the axe home next to the other woman's pack.  
  
There was a tense moment, as if Cassandra was going to contest again. Sher counted the seconds off in her head.... one thousand, two thousand.....  
  
"All right." Well, that was easy. The beeper Sher kept in her inner coat pocket went off. Sher swore and dug it out, pulling her mitten off her hand. Cassandra stared at her missing finger, eyes wide.  
  
"Tessa, report." Sher glanced at the clouds billowing in. This looked bad. She was no judge of weather, but she was recognizing snow clouds when she saw them lately.  
  
"Restraints, broken," came the hollow reply.  
  
Sher cocked her head. "Understood. Lockdown doors 3A through 15D. Report at fifteen hundred."  
  
"Compliance."  
  
Sher tucked the axe under her arm, and replaced her mitten. It was lunchtime. She shoved the beeper in her coat, and started back to the house. Cassandra picked up her pack and followed her towards the small cottage.  
  
"What happened to your finger?" she asked Sher quietly.  
  
"He ate it."  
  
********  
  
PARIS:  
  
Joe Dawson regarded himself as a patient man. He also regarded himself a stupid man. "Oh Methos, Methos," he mused as he turned the pages in a journal older then himself. Funny how this journal was written by a man younger than him. Well, respectively.  
  
How hard it was to repeatedly remind himself not to damn the man's name. How hard these days to get through the day wondering if anyone would ever be closer to realization. Someone on this earth should have been able to stand up and say 'I have the answer.'  
  
Until then, Joe turned the pages and wondered.  
  
The journal was an intricate thing, marked with scrolling in the margins, so very different from the simple Latin of the text. Methos had made so many notations in the corners of the text that they had all but disappeared in time and water damage. Some corners had crumbled away to nothing.  
  
There was no answer in the small journal, and Joe knew that. All the books that were worth anything were in the possession of the one who wrote them, and the most important ones, at that, were probably lost forever, at the bottom of the sea, or reincarnated as petunias or trees growing in the rich soil by numerous rivers and streams.  
  
Natasha Billings had sent him an email, and the fed ex package had come today. He leafed through the journal, wondering why she even bothered to ask his opinion. It was no secret to the Watchers that the past ten years of his life had been spent in utter silence on the subject of Duncan MacLeod. But the new ruling heads had decided not to press him. Funny how one administration could be nothing like the previous one.  
  
The journal was useless. A piece of crap with two lines of Panthyona bullshit. Panthyona, Pythyona, did it fucking matter? Natasha had sent a voluminous package about Ladon, and Hera. He didn't even look at it. One thing did interest him, though. She sent a few dates in a margin. He highlighted them with red ink:  
  
2200-2000 BCE Barbaric invaders; fortresses on hilltops 2000-1600 BCE Knossos 1200 Myceneans conquer Troy  
  
Joe couldn't care less about Pantheona. He knew what she was. He didn't care how she got there. Methos was what he was looking for. Everything that started with Methos could end with him.  
  
He closed his eyes for a second, then stared at the woodcutting. It was still stained brown from the...incident...at Headquarters. He wondered at the significance again.  
  
Gerald Forman, upstanding member of the Watcher's research division, had used a fire axe to slaughter Jean De Sauvee, and Pricilla Silsbee had gouged out the eyes of the other researcher, a young girl named Lisa Kindell, before she severed the girl's spine with a paper cutter. Then they had turned on each other. Gerald had won, because he had had the axe. He had dismembered her, and was found unconscious on top of the woman's torso, naked, still inside her.  
  
Joe wrinkled his nose and declined the shot the bartender had offered him. Natasha had said that Gerald had been in complete shock, and after the first few mutterings of innocence, he had accompanied police to the local prison holding, where he had promptly hung himself. She had also said that the only other researcher in the room, Simone Blanchard, had been sent to the lab with the woodcutting. When she had returned two hours later, she had dropped the cutting on Lisa's head.  
  
"That's en-ter-tain-ment," Joe sang to the tune of an old Bugs Bunny cartoon. He unceremoniously dumped the journal, papers and letters into the nifty airmail box and shoved it away from himself. It could have been worse; his daughter had wanted in on the Pantheona project. She could have been in there.  
  
Natasha was an overzealous girl whose parents just happened to be the right people. The disappearance of Duncan MacLeod was the biggest mystery of the past decade. Natasha's discovery of the old journal on Joe's desk had led to a darker place. She was convinced that Methos could be traced through this Pantheona. She was also convinced that Methos had taken Duncan's head. Joe let her believe all of it. It was sad how everyone talked of Mac in the past tense. Even he did it now days.  
  
He pulled the small white envelope out of his pocket and opened the flap one more time. He unfolded the letter again, and perused Sher's words.  
  
"Joe---She's talking. Get him here."  
  
Sher had always been verbose, and this was unlike her. He was afraid of what they would find if he managed to get Methos there. He had called Amanda three months ago, but the woman had never returned his calls. Cassandra had left for the states a few weeks ago. She should have gotten there by this time.  
  
Joe pushed away the rest of his bourbon, and closed his eyes, resting his head on the counter. He drifted off to sleep, and dreamed of better days.  
  
SANTORINI, DECEMBER, 2001:  
  
Joe stepped into the darkened room, and waited. There was no one there.  
  
"Mac? Methos?" He knew that they had taken a little cottage on the island. This was the only one that was inhabited in the middle of the winter. But the lights were out. The windows were boarded, but the front door had been unlocked. Joe had decided to go in, since it had started to storm, and his little vespa driver had left him here for fear of being caught in the storm.  
  
Duncan had told him that this would be the place. Santorini. Yes.  
  
Joe ran headfirst into a wall, and used it to find a table. He found a lamp in the darkness, and flipped the switch. Light flooded the room and bathed everything in dark brown. The bed was overturned, and the chairs in splinters. The table runner underneath him was stiff with dried blood. Joe knew old blood when he saw it. The air had lost that metallic smell, but splatters of it still clung to the wall in almost clumps. Someone had bled. Messily. A lot.  
  
There was a shuffle down the hallway, and he slid the short sword out of his cane. The cane had been a present from Methos last Christmas. He hadn't even thought to bring his gun.  
  
"Methos? Duncan?"  
  
A figure shambled into the light. A female figure. She was naked, still clothed in the scant dirt that had stuck to her in her ascent. Her forearms were caked with grime and blood. Her hair was plastered to her head in places and wispy free in others. But she was otherwise hale and unharmed.  
  
Alexa stared at him with her wide doe eyes and held out her hands.  
  
"Give us a kiss."  
  
end part two 


	3. Fistula

Disclaimer: Methos, Duncan, Joe and the other characters from Highlander: The Series, belong to Davis/Panzer. I do not make any money. At least, not for this. Sher is mine. Pantheona stays in my basement and chews on her own leg. Sorry bout that. Natasha is mine, but I don't like it.  
  
This is slash and icky stuff. Be warned for violence and language. Ouchie poo.  
  
Thanks to my quickie betas, Dana and Alice, without whom this would be scarier than it is, and not for content. Thanks to Chuck, who reads and whines.  
  
----------------------------------  
  
Tongues of Angels  
  
by Amand-r  
  
---------------------------------  
  
PART THREE: FISTULA  
  
I want your hand across my belly I want your breasts against my back I want your pain to rip right through me I am your death you are my wrath. --Sophie B. Hawkins, "32 Lines"  
  
FEBRUARY, 2002:  
  
Pantheona grasped the sides of her stomach and vomited. Methos decided he wouldn't mind so much if it weren't so damned messy. He reached for another towel and wiped at the sides of her face as she stared at him dumbly.  
  
"Well," he muttered in a light tone. "A little sick are we?" She smiled and showed teeth. "I'll take that as a sign that you're alright," he sighed. Pantheona wouldn't have much to say. She didn't know any English, or much of anything else. At least, that's what he had gathered. She hadn't said a word since she stumbled in the door three weeks ago.  
  
Mac had been reluctant to let her in, but he seemed relieved that Pantheona was actually a person, and one that Methos hadn't been sexually involved with. Methos was aware that Duncan had been obsessing about his disappearances. His departure in October had only cemented the Highlander's suspicions that Methos was involved with someone else.  
  
Methos chuckled. If he only knew.  
  
He helped Pantheona stand and escorted her back into the loft living area. Duncan was rolling the lift gate up, coming back from his morning run. Methos made a face that told him everything that had happened so far that morning. The Scot skirted clear of Pantheona and opened the fridge, tossing Methos the bottle of Pepto Bismol. Methos poured a little bit into a cup and held it out to the girl.  
  
"Drink, kiddo."  
  
Pantheona knew the routine; she sipped the small amount of liquid from the plastic cup and grinned beautifically, then flung herself down onto the couch, splaying her arms and legs. Her little body was encased in a lacy pink flannel nightgown, sock feet sticking out to touch the floor. Methos rinsed the cup out and replaced the bottle in the fridge.  
  
Duncan poured himself a glass of juice and leaned on the counter, watching Pantheona make gestures in the air and sing to herself. He curled one arm around Methos's waist and pulled the other immortal close to him.  
  
"How is her highness today?" he murmured into Methos's ear. The other Immortal pushed away from him and wrinkled his nose.  
  
"The same. You smell really bad."  
  
Mac grinned, and for a second, Methos wished he hadn't said it. "I try." He finished his juice and let go of Methos entirely, pulling his sweatshirt off and heading to the bathroom. "Whose turn is it for bath duty?"  
  
Methos winced. Mac had been blessedly good about this whole thing. Pantheona was a burden, and the Highlander had taken it on as if she was an invited guest in their house instead of a vagabond that had washed up on the beach outside of their cottage in Santorini. He had bought her a ticket back to Seacouver, and they had bundled her up and taken her with them. Methos had slept with her on the couch until Duncan suggested that the two of them have the bed.  
  
"Yours," he said absently, staring at the girl on the couch. Pantheona had taken off one sock and was biting her toenails. No wonder she was sick. Damn.  
  
He heard Mac start to run the bath, and Pantheona's eyes widened. She made eye contact, freezing. He didn't move. This was the morning ritual. Bathtime was more like some sort of sporting event that should show up in the next summer Olympics. //Right up there with alligator wrestling and bunjee jumping.// She tensed, and her hands flexed, but she betrayed herself by looking towards the door. Methos shook his head.  
  
"No." She seemed to understand that word. Her comprehension didn't help. She bolted over the back of the couch and made for the lift, hair flying behind her like a demented cape. Methos dove over the counter in the kitchen. He'd never get her.  
  
Mac tackled her from the bathroom, slamming into her waist and encircling her. The two fell to the ground, and Pantheona let out a screech that could have shattered glass. She kicked and spit as Duncan raised them both to a standing position. Then she went limp in his arms. He dragged her into the steaming bathroom, Methos following behind.  
  
"I think we should try a shower," Mac told him absently. "I mean, everyone's going to get wet here, and we could close the doors and save the floor." He didn't let go of Pantheona until Methos had locked the door firmly and turned around.  
  
When he did let go, she rammed into Methos head first, knocking the wind out of him and slamming them both into the door. He struggled with her hands while Duncan finished undressing. He left his boxers on and turned the bath to a shower. Methos sighed. Here they all went again.  
  
Pantheona was a mess. Her hair was filthy from being sick, and her face was grimy from the chocolate cake they had foolishly let her have last night. Her fingernails were caked with it and whatever she'd been doing with the crayons this morning. Before she'd decided to eat them.  
  
Mac held her arms while Methos unbuttoned the nightgown and tried to take the remaining sock off. Pantheona became limp again, so they set her on the toilet seat and he pried them off her feet, the stiffened right angles that they were. Lord, children weren't this difficult. He removed his own sweats and tested the water.  
  
"On the count of three," he said in a mild voice, as if he were discussing the weather, or the stock reports. Mac didn't reply, but he knew he'd been heard. "One," he sang. "Two......three." He reached and grabbed Pantheona's feet and they dragged her into the shower, wailing as if she were being doused in acid. "For God's sake!" he screamed. "Pantheona! Stop!" He wrapped his arms about her shoulders and held her while Mac busied himself with shampoo.  
  
It was a chore, and a two person one at that, to clean a woman who was only five three. //Call Guinness, this *has* to be some sort of perverted record.// One to hold, the other to clean. And clean her they did. Hair and face were always first. There had been occasions where it had been smart to cut the cleaning session short. This time it was a full body wash. Yesterday and the day before Pantheona had vetoed any other cleaning.  
  
Duncan massaged her head, and her eyes seemed to lid over for a second. It was as if she was starting to cave. Methos let go, and she shot forward towards the side of the sliding door. Duncan snorted and caught her square in the chest with the flat of his hand, shaking his head. She backed away. Methos grunted. She listened to him. Why was that?  
  
He took the time to peruse his lover as he washed Pantheona's feet and calves. The muscles on Duncan's back writhed as he worked. The hair at the nape of his neck curled and plastered itself to the dark skin. Methos could see his own legs in comparison with Pantheona's olive complexion. They were both still tanned from their time on Santorini. He heaved a sigh, and both of the occupants of the shower looked at him. He shrugged and tightened his hold on her shoulders, and Pantheona mirrored his sigh. The hot water beat down on both of their backs.  
  
He leaned against the stall wall, and closed his eyes.  
  
...Pantheona's arrival had been so swift; he hadn't even had time to contemplate it. She had come out of the water, a drowned thing, covered in seaweed, and choking. He and Mac had been walking along the shore that morning, talking, thinking of going down to the village and having lunch, when they had heard her wail, high-pitched, like that of a baby.  
  
He had frozen. Mac had charged head towards the immobile form. Methos had known in his heart what it was that lay ahead of them.  
  
"She's alive!" Mac had called over his shoulder, kneeling down to untangle some of the seaweed from her throat. Methos stood back and shook.  
  
"Don't touch her."  
  
"Methos, she's choking--"  
  
"GET AWAY FROM HER!"  
  
The volume of his voice had been enough to make the Highlander second-guess his actions. He jolted back from the body, leaving Methos to crouch down beside the still form and reach for her throat. She had still been partly formed. If he had stabbed her at that moment, she would have died, and nothing could happen to him. Or could it?  
  
Pantheona had opened her eyes and smiled.  
  
And he had known that it was over...  
  
Now, Mac dutifully washed in between Pantheona's legs and up over the swells of her small breasts like an orderly, staring at Methos. He smiled. Pantheona cooed to herself, then let out a sharp yell as he tried to turn her to wash her back.  
  
"Oh, live with it, Thee," Duncan muttered, as he would to a dog or small child. That earned him a dirty look from his captive bather. Methos suppressed a laugh.  
  
When she was clean, and they were all clean, the shower was turned off and they toweled her down and let her go. Pantheona wandered the loft clutching the towel around her, picking up random objects and talking to herself in singsong.  
  
"Was it my imagination, or was that easier than a bathtub?" Duncan whispered in his ear from behind. Methos sagged against the weight behind him. He was so grateful for the Highlander's assistance, and at the same time, he couldn't help but think that if Mac hadn't been there that morning on the beach, this whole thing might have been circumvented. Methos needed to watch her now; it wasn't a matter of dumping her off in a psych ward. Nothing would ever be that easy. Not with her.  
  
Pantheona seemed to sense his thoughts, and turned her brown eyes on him. They were the color of dried blood.  
  
***********  
  
LONDON, 2012:  
  
Methos woke in a cold sweat. Something had been choking him. In his head, he could still feel the echo of something, something. He tossed back the blankets and rolled from the bed, skipping any robe and instead choosing to get dressed.  
  
The moon spilled in through the bottom of the venetian blind; the clock blinked twelve midnight because no one had bothered to reset it.  
  
He opened his dresser drawer and removed a key from one of the bundles of white socks in the back. Then he dug under the bed until he found the box he wanted and carried it out into the kitchen.  
  
The kitchenette was far enough away from the bedroom that he wouldn't wake anyone. He poured himself a brandy and settled in one of their little ergonomic chairs and placed the box on the table.  
  
For a long time, all he did was stare at it. It was a lacquered thing, tooled with gold and painted in the design of the Celtic knot. It had been a gift from someone; he didn't even remember who, but the lock was fairly unique. He placed the key in and turned, then knocked the lid back to remove it.  
  
Then all he did was stare at the photo on the top. Duncan held Pantheona, arms around her waist. The girl looked distracted; her head was turned and she was staring at something far away from them. She probably hadn't even known what Methos was doing when he took the picture. That is, until the flash had gone off. Then she had screamed.  
  
He fingered the photo. Pantheona glowed as if she were lit. And she had been. They had given her wine with dinner, and she had been tipsy by the time they were finished. //It's like giving beer to a dog, and watching them stagger around,// he thought to himself, slightly amused by the analogy. They had fed her cake, and she had been sick as usual in the morning, but who knew if she had had a hangover.  
  
Pantheona had been so easy to control in those days, no one but Methos would have guessed what was lurking behind those big velvet eyes. Duncan had even started to buy her gifts and take her to the park, where she chased the ducks and tried to play with every dog that they crossed.  
  
Joe had not been in any of his usual places for a month or two, and Methos had been worried. He had messengered that he would be staying in Greece for a while, but didn't disclose any information about what was going on. He had assured them that he would be returning soon.  
  
He never came, and by the time he got there, Pantheona had grown up.  
  
Methos tossed the picture aside, and reached for another. This was the one that had led to their current arrangement. Sher on horseback. He cocked his head and studied her frame. There was no hint of damage on her here; her own ordeals with becoming immortal had finally been reconciled. She leaned down onto the horse's back and wrapped her arms about its neck, laying her head on its shoulder.  
  
He smiled. She was always there, his Sher. And now?  
  
//Would that all of our transitions to immortality were so easily dismissed,// he mused, glancing back at the first picture.  
  
There was a noise from the bedroom, and he shoved the pictures back into the box and slipped it in the cupboard. Peter Laurent knew nothing of the Watchers per se, so it wouldn't do for her to find pictures of Duncan in his possession. Natasha stumbled out of the bedroom, wiping her eyes with balled fists.  
  
"What time is it?" she mumbled.  
  
"I don't know. Too early for you to be up. Go back to bed." He tried not to be snippy, but his own voice sounded too clipped, too menacing.  
  
She noticed it too. "Bad dreams?" Her hands went to his shoulders, kneading. For a second he pretended they were someone else's. But it was impossible; they were too small, too delicate.  
  
For once, he was happy to be able to tell her the truth. "Yes, bad dreams."  
  
She nestled her face in the back of his neck and breathed. The warm gust tickled him. "I'm sorry. Anything you want to talk about?"  
  
Methos closed his eyes and reached a hand up to clasp hers. He thought of Pantheona, and Duncan. He slipped the key into the small ledge under the edge of the table. "No. Not really."  
  
"Come to bed. It's too cold out here."  
  
//Cold. Cold slows her down.// Methos took a swift intake of breath and nodded his head.  
  
"Bed it is."  
  
It was on the way back to the bedroom that an icy chill caught his throat, and he remembered.  
  
'oinev, sohtem, mus arret bus....Methos, I come, I am under the earth..."  
  
**********  
  
MONTANA:  
  
Sher and Cassandra shared the silence of the farmhouse as if it was the last thing they possessed. Time was jealous and rolled past slower than normal, making then hunt to find things to say, things to do.  
  
Sher finished setting up the clips for the nine millimeters, and placed the last one on the table in front of her, staring at it intently. Cassandra glared at her. Sher had purposefully set about this chore in front of the witch just to piss her off. It had seemed to work.  
  
"You do these things to irritate me," Cassandra sang mildly, turning the pages in one of Sher's journal logs of Pantheona. Sher simply slid a new clip into the gun and drove it home. She leaned back on two chair legs and opened one of the curio drawers, removing a Casull and night scope.  
  
The Casull was a big gun. It only had room for five bullets, and it was guaranteed to make a large hole in anything. Sher had seen it in the movie Alien Nation, and had ordered one immediately. She had only used it once, and the recoil had sent her three feet back into a concrete wall, and broken her wrist.  
  
Not the most practical gun, but damn, it was pretty. Cassandra's eyes widened. "What the hell are you planning to do with that?"  
  
Sher smiled. "Look for bear?" She shrugged. "How else do you think I get meat around here?" When Cassandra made a face, she winked.  
  
"It's a dubiously pleasant thing to see you haven't lost your macabre sense of humor," she muttered as she returned to the book.  
  
Sher plunked the gun down on the table and returned to the coffeepot. "What, did you think it had gone the way of the finger?" She wiggled her four-digit hand and smirked. Cassandra hated looking at that hand. Sher sensed that it had less to do with the actual hand itself, and more with the thought that her finger had passed through Duncan's innards. Still, any leverage was good leverage these days.  
  
Cassandra was driving her mad. She followed her everywhere; into the barn, down to the cell, into the computer room, back to the house. She accompanied her out to chop firewood. Sher thought to get another axe in the next air shipment and make her pull her own weight.  
  
Sher refused to leave her alone with Pantheona. The last time she had left anyone with the creature alone, Amanda had tripped security and released her. That had been a hoot.  
  
Of course, Duncan hadn't gotten far. Sher had filled him with a few rounds from a long distance .44 and that had been that. Amanda had gotten away, but Sher had decided to set the ground sensors for height instead of mass. Amanda and some deer weighed the same. Not that it could keep her out for long, but with that much wildlife out there, Sher was stuck between a rock and a hard place.  
  
Cassandra, she sensed, had no intentions of releasing Pantheona. Instead, she used her voice to make Duncan come to the cell wall. Sher watched her reach out to Duncan, attempting to touch him through the mass that was Pantheona.  
  
She wasn't going to tell the witch not to do her little hocus pocus. With any luck, she had figured that out this morning when Duncan had pulled her arm out of the socket and had almost succeeded in ripping it off entirely. Cassie was still sore about that. Sher choked down a few 'bludgeoning by arm' jokes and instead brought them both a warm refill.  
  
Cass shivered. "I could use a shower."  
  
Sher snorted. "You want to go down to the barn? I can spray you with Pantheona's firehose."  
  
Cass shot her a dirty look. "I still don't see why you don't bother to heat this house with the generators. I haven't had to heat bathwater in a long time."  
  
Sher nodded and acquiesced to the small talk. "There's no duct work in the house for heat. And do you know how much electricity it takes to heat something?" She shook her head. "I'll stay with the woodstoves and save the big power for the barn." She raised an eyebrow and scrolled her hand with the gun in it. "Overkill prevents overkill."  
  
Cass shrugged. "I was just thinking, that all this money, and you--"  
  
Sher sighed, and rolled her eyes. "Booooooring. Do I tell you how to do that wicky voice box thing? Anyone ever told you that you sound like Darth Vader when you do that?"  
  
A lie, but it served its point. "Fine. You do your job, and I'll do mine."  
  
Sher cocked her head and examined her nails. "The funny thing about that statement is the phrase, 'your job'. As in you, Cass. Your job is...?"  
  
The woman sighed and shut the book she held in her hands. "Joe sent me."  
  
Sher tilted her head back. "Ah." Cass rose and put another log on the fire. Sher watched her with slitted eyes. "Has he found Methos yet?" The other woman turned to her, face blank. That look said it all. "No," she answered for her. "Well then, what, pray tell, are you doing here?"  
  
Cassandra returned to her seat and picked up her mug, curling her hands around it as if to leech every last bit of warmth from the ceramic. "He seems to think it might be prudent to have two of us here. I have to agree, though things would go a bit more smoothly if you were more cooperative."  
  
Sher landed her chair back onto four feet and laid her chin on the table. "Why? I'm fine. The bitch is still alive. Although I do miss a good game of Canasta." She blinked wide eyes in Cassandra's direction. The witch smiled.  
  
"Shall I call you the fingerless wonder?" she parried, her face venomously sweet.  
  
Sher laughed. "Now we're getting somewhere. I, the fingerless wonder, and you, wicky Darth Vader voice, shall conquer Pantheona and drive her from the face of the earth."  
  
Cass shrugged. "That was the idea." She opened the book again. "What has he been saying?"  
  
"Latin," Sher answered. "Backwards. She loves a good mystery. The usual threats, crying, asking for Methos, et ce-trah, et ce-trah, et ce-trah," Sher finished in her best Yul Brenner voice.  
  
Cassandra didn't look up at her. "Sounds to me like she knows more than she is letting on. Do you think she got that from Duncan?"  
  
Sher shrugged and scraped at her palm with a small paring knife. "It's anyone's guess. I have no idea what she was like before, so I'm not the one to ask." She rolled her eyes. "See, the one to ask is Methos, who you were supposed to bring *with* you, but I guess you forgot about that--"  
  
"Child, hush," Cassandra chided, her face soft and strained at the same. Sher decided to obey the stentorian image and shut her mouth. "I was just wondering how difficult it will be to separate them. If they can be separated. If he's in there at all." She frowned again, and returned her gaze to the fire for a second.  
  
"I don't suppose you've given any thought to what that might do to us, to all of us, have you?" Sher mused, trying not to make another smart-ass remark.  
  
Cassandra was less than pleased with that idea. "Sometimes saving one is more important than a whole."  
  
Sher couldn't help it. "How very James Tiberius Kirk of you. I prefer the whole Spock theory." She sniffed and peeled a callus from the pad of her hand, flicking it in the fire. "You ever read the Bible?"  
  
The other woman looked up then, eyes hooded and cautious. "No," she replied. "There didn't seem to be any point--"  
  
"Matthew, Chapter eight. Jesus meets two demon possessed men coming from the tombs." Sher lifted a book from the stack and opened it, scanning and turning pages. "They were so violent that no one could pass that way." She found the passage she wanted and traced it with her finger. "'Suddenly they shouted, "What have you to do with us, Son of God? Have you come here to torment us before the time?" Now a large herd of swine was feeding at some distance from them.'"  
  
Sher glanced up to see if Cass had figured out what she was pointing to. The woman's eyes glittered with something dark. She continued.  
  
"'The demons begged him, "If you cast us out, send us into the herd of swine." And he said to them, "Go!" So they came out and entered the swine; and suddenly, the whole herd rushed down the steep bank into the sea and perished in the water.'"  
  
The two women stared at each other over the table. If she concentrated, Sher could almost hear Pantheona purring to herself in the ground.  
  
********  
  
LONDON, THE NEXT DAY:  
  
Methos checked his two duffel bags in to the airline, and clutched his carry-on to his chest. He would have to move quickly in order to catch the plane, but he could do it. He ran to the gate and threw his ticket to the flight attendant, hurtling down the tubing that led to the innards of the plane like an umbilical that could ensconce him back into the womb. And that is what this would do-- take him far far away, safe, where he could duck his head again.  
  
It wasn't escaping. It wasn't desertion. He had told Tasha that he was going away on business. It was only natural that anthropologists go to Kenya every once in a while, even if the plane was bound for Hong Kong. He collapsed into a seat and pondered that the plane would take him farther from everyone, and that was just fine with him.  
  
In the nick of time too. Dawson was on his way to London. He had arranged to have dinner with Tasha and Peter that evening. Methos had scribbled a note and left it on the fridge, then called Natasha's answering service and told her what was going on. He had scrupulously hidden the framed photo of the two of them, and --  
  
Shit.  
  
He had left the box and the key. Methos looked around frantically. There was no way in hell he was getting off this plane. The flight attendant had already closed the door, and if he went back for it now, he might very well run into Joe on the way home.  
  
Methos gritted his teeth and fastened his seatbelt. He didn't know why he was worried. Tasha was rarely home for long periods at a time, and why ever would she open the box? It wasn't as if she had something to be suspicious of. No, the box could stay where it was. It was in the cupboard with the cooking pans. Tasha hadn't ever cooked anything in that kitchen. She was a take out girl.  
  
Methos hadn't intended to get involved with a Watcher, but it had been so damned convenient. He had long since erased all photos of Adam Pierson from Watcher directories and databases, and although they had figured out that Pierson was Methos, they never had any pics of him in the Methos files. It had been too easy.  
  
They had met incidentally in a taxi, and he, in need of some companionship, had followed her home. She had taken a shining to him, and four years to the day of their initial cab ride, he had proposed. The wedding wasn't set. Methos wasn't sure if would ever be. It didn't matter.  
  
He had known she was a Watcher. The tattoo had been replaced in the past five years by a bracelet that was welded around the wrist, since the mark had proven itself too easy to mimic. They used retinal scans for everything, and there was no getting into the Headquarters building. Amanda's days of B and E were over with.  
  
Then Tasha had taken to saying Pantheona in her sleep. Once or twice, and he had pressed her on it. He had whispered in her ear, suggestions, hints. If she could bring him some of the Chronicles, then maybe...  
  
But Tasha never brought her work home with her. Not one scrap. She worked late if she needed to, but the girl stuck closer to the Watcher oath than a child on the first level of moral reasoning- rules were there to be obeyed no matter what. No, she was not a 'bend in the wind' kind of girl.  
  
Methos stayed away from Dawson as if they would implode if they got within three yards of each other. Joe hadn't forgiven him for what had happened, and he hadn't forgiven Joe for Alexa.  
  
Alexa. If he called her name, she might come back. They all came back. What was that phrase from that wretched horror movie?  
  
//Death is only the beginning.//  
  
*******  
  
PARIS:  
  
Amanda stirred the olive in her martini and pondered the pulsing lights of The Sanctuary. She was bored. She'd had the club for over ten years, and while she was rarely here, it was an investment. The Sanctuary had kept up with the times, but strobelights, she mused, were always in fashion. It made her head hurt. She hoped her appointment showed soon.  
  
No one was ever around anymore. Liam was gone, as was Nick. He had settled in with a young bride to ignore Immortality as long as he could. She sighed. Some lessons couldn't be taught, only learned through experience, no matter how it hurt to watch from the sidelines.  
  
Methos and Duncan had seemed to make a promising couple there for a while, and then--  
  
She told herself not to go there. Everyone seemed to have disappeared these days. Amanda had taken to ignoring Joe. It was depressing to be around mortals, especially the older ones. She never returned his emails and phone messages.  
  
She checked her watch. He appointment was at seven, and it was now seven- thirty. Amanda did *not* like being stood up. Bennie had assured her that this guy dripped money, and she did like that, however. She crossed her legs and wished the lights to go away. She needed some down time. This was not the place to get it.  
  
With not that many people to play with as there used to be, Amanda had turned her sights on other distractions. It had been so easy to slip back into being a thief, one of the highest paid on the planet. That was nice. And creative too. No more Cartier, very few Louvre jobs. This was the big time, like cops and robbers. Government installations, munitions factories, once in the Emperor of Japan's private country house. She grinned. *That* had been fun. Duncan would have killed her, but--  
  
//Don't go there.//  
  
There was something about the rush, like when she and Cory Raines used to rob banks. Of course, this didn't have many bullets, so far. She was hoping to keep it that way.  
  
She threw a ten to the bartender and leaned over to pick up her coat. So much for big business tonight. Maybe she'd hop a plane down to the Bahamas and see what was what. Nice, warm weather.  
  
A hand on her shoulder stopped her, and she turned. This was an interesting change. What greeted her was an older man, mid-forties, graying, but polished, in a pre Grecian 44 sort of way. He had fabulous teeth. She gave him her best sexy business smile and extended her hand.  
  
"I assume you are looking for me?" The man took her hand and shook it. His hands were feverishly warm. Well, it was hot in here.  
  
"That depends on who you are," Amanda purred, smoothing a stray curl behind her ear. The man took the stool next to her and waved the bartender away.  
  
"I am looking for Amanda Montrose. You have to be her. Benjamin Staley told me that she was one of the most fuckable woman on the planet." The man shrugged. "His words, but I did manage to find you fairly easily."  
  
Amanda grinned. She could play this card. "Bennie has a way with words. Drink?"  
  
The man shook his head. "No thank you. It's bad for my constitution."  
  
She triggered the bartender to take her glass. "Then it's on to business, is it, Mr...?"  
  
Her companion smiled. "I'm sorry, it's Forman, Gerry Forman." He accepted her hand and raised it to his lips for a second. His bracelet flashed in the strobe lights.  
  
"Gerry," Amanda rolled the word on her tongue. "Lovely, Gerry. Now," she leaned in closer to him. He smelled like metal and stale air. "What do you need?"  
  
Gerry pulled pictures out of a manila folder and slid them over to her. She kept his gaze. Sometimes looking at the picture committed one to the job, and she never committed to jobs blindly. Last time she had, she'd had to steal three Sharpei dogs from a Dutch Princess in the Netherlands. Her leather boots were damaged beyond repair.  
  
"I am interested in how good you are with lockdown facilities," he started.  
  
That cinched it for her. "I don't do prisons," she replied sweetly. "Chances are whoever is in there is there for a reason. Sorry." She gathered her coat into her arms, feeling the weight of the sword.  
  
Gerry shook his head and gestured for her to be silent. "Please, it is not a prison. There's no harm in looking at a few aerial shots, is there?" He smiled. "No commitment."  
  
Amanda slid all the way back on top the stool and touched the tips of her fingers to the edge of the first shot. It was an aerial of a snow-covered house, she thought, and a hundred yards from it, another structure. The snow hid a lot.  
  
She didn't need to see any more.  
  
"Just one man, I'm looking for. My client wants one man."  
  
Amanda flipped to the next photo; there was a closer shot of the forest area. Someone from a top angle. It was difficult to figure the gender, but she knew, as Gerry continued.  
  
"One guard, computer systems, that's it." He paused. "We're looking for a man named Duncan MacLeod..."  
  
end of three 


End file.
